TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Goerke, Laszlo
AU  - Pannenberg, Markus
        TI  - Trade Union Membership and Dismissals
        PY  - 2010/Sep/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 5222
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp5222
        AB  - In Germany, there is no trade union membership wage premium, while the membership fee amounts to 1% of the gross wage. Therefore, prima facie, there are strong incentives to free-ride on the benefits of trade unionism. We establish empirical evidence for a private gain from trade union membership which has hitherto not been documented: in West Germany, union members are less likely to lose their jobs than non-members. In particular, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel we can show that roughly 50% of the observed raw differential in individual dismissal rates can be explained by the estimated average partial effect of union membership.
        KW  - dismissal
KW  - free-riding
KW  - trade union membership
KW  - survey data
        ER  -